weekend at Changbai mountain

Wrote this entry in word 5 days ago. Just getting around to posting it:

So our first weekend in China as a family. . . Where to even start.

So a group of JCI folks were going to go down to Changbai mountain for the weekend. I assumed we would not join since we just landed in China a few days ago, but Dee felt like a little weekend getaway might be a good distraction from day to day life. Even though it was a 5 hour bus ride starting at 5:40 am on Saturday, we decided to give it a shot.
Turns out nothing is ever as it seems in China. The 5 hour bus ride turned out to be a 9 hour bus ride. That’s a lot of time to be sitting in a bus 3 days after spending 24 hours in planes. We at least got to get out of the bus when the bus had to drive over a river bridge made of 4x6 planks of wood. It was good to stretch our legs (and not wonder if we would be dropping to our certain deaths).
It also turned out that we were going to make a 2 hour stop for anyone who wanted to go white water rafting (or drifting as they call it here). Since no one told us this ahead of time, we had no swimsuits and decided to pass on the drifting. So we sat and waited downriver for the handful of drifters on our bus to make it to the landing. We passed the time skipping stones until Jonathan let a rock fly into the back of the boat catcher guy. Turns out Chinese guys get just as mad as anyone else when some little kid chucks a rock in their back.
After we collected everybody we headed to dinner (12 hours after our trip began). The meal was already prepared and on the table when we arrived. I would like to say what was on the table but I could only identify 3-4 items. There was rice of course and a potato and chicken dish. Then there was fried little fish (think Chinese goldfish) that Dee liked and tofu that she didn’t. Some seaweed dish. Some candied pears on ice (we think). A pile of grey goo. A plate of bean sprouts and a giant bowl of tomato soup. The kids ate the rice.
After dinner we went to our deluxe accommodations down the street. It turns out that deluxe accommodations in rural china takes on a slightly different meaning. The boys and I shared a room with 4 single beds and Dee and Emily shared a room with one queen bed. When we were all settled in, we played the game ‘if you could improve one thing at this hotel what would it be’ game. We started with having a room key. Then we thought mattresses would be a nice touch. Nathan thought the walls could use some paint instead of being all white. Jonathan thought the water stains under the radiator could get cleaned up. Dee thought maybe having toilet paper would b e a nice touch. Emily really stretched and thought a western toilet would be great. No one mentioned wanting a shower. Not sure if this was an oversight or the thought of what that shower might look like in this particular hotel scared the thought out of our heads. Then we all giggled thinking about yesterday when we were debating whether we should bring our swimsuits in case the hotel had a pool. Our expectations might have been a bit high on that one.
When it was time to say goodnight, my wife informed me that she expected a little more out of me in celebrating her 40th birthday. Ouch. That’s not something I thought about in my 12 hours of time on a bus with nothing to think about. Huh. You’d think that would have crossed my mind. Not sure when this failure begins to fade. I’m hoping by birthday 41. Or by the time I doing some serious celebration make-up work.
After waking up at 5 am to catch a breakfast of rice soup (ta mi zhou) which no one seemed to care for (in our family anyway), we were off to the mountain. This involved another hour busride. At the main entrance, we had to wait for our tickets which gave the other Chinese tourists a chance to take photographs with our kids. This is a strange feeling having people treat your kids like superstars and/or circus animals but the experience was pretty consistent the whole time we were at the mountain. I don’t think it will be hard for the boys to meet Chinese girls (of any age).
Once we were in the park, we got to get on another bus to take us from the entrance to the foot of the volcanoe where we would climb 1200 steps to get to the top . If we were lucky, we would be able to see the lake in the mouth of the volcano. We were lucky for about 7 seconds. The guide told us we had to be back at the bus in 1 hour. I think I might have sworn to myself at this point. “We’ve been traveling in a bus for approximately 15 hours to this point and we have one hour to climb these steps, take a picture, and then come back to get back on the bus. Really?”
So the steps were a great moment of Chinese safety precautions. There were old stone steps that were being augmented with wooden steps. We were hiking up the wooden steps. They were in the middle of building the wooden steps. Apparently hiking next to drilling, cutting, and welding soldiers is not unusual in china. Neither is walking across balance beam wide boards spanning open spaces in the steps. OSHA would go nuts in china.
Once we were at the top, the picture taking of the kids really fired up in earnest. The wind was whipping over the top, but it was pretty cool. The thousand or so Chinese folks were all mulling about. My JCI colleague informed us that on a clear day you can see the N Korean soldiers on the other side of the lake. “I’m sorry” I said. “Soldiers? N Korea?”. Apparently this volcano was the border. OK.
This little curiousity was bumping around in my brain when we were suddenly getting herded back to the steps. I asked what was going on and they said that we actually had accidentally crossed into NK when we went right at the top of the steps instead of left and the two angry men were NK soldiers trying to get 300 or so Chinese folks herded back into their country. My mind began to race a little bit. I was guessing that the NK soldiers might be more sensitive to the Chinese tourist than they would be to the American family. I decided not to test this theory.
When we got back to the steps, all the Chinese were getting their pictures taken next to the sign that said, ‘danger. You’re on the border with NK. Don’t turn right’ with a rope blocking the way. Everybody thought this was good fun. I asked why no one bothered to translate this sign for the Americans. The JCI folks said they hadn’t noticed it on the way up. I think I would have noticed and I’m not a super observant guy.
After the Volcano came a bus ride to a river view. Then a bus ride to a different bus ride to go for a 1 mile boardwalk walk along a canyon. Then a bus ride back to base camp. Then a 7 hour bus ride back home interrupted by an hour for us to go souvenir shopping at a store that sold roots for $200 each. Apparently you can make a nice tea with these roots. We didn’t buy one, but some others did.

By my count, we spent about 24 hours on buses this weekend and about 3 hours in changbai mountain. That seemed like a bit of a tough travel to sightseeing ratio, but none of the Chinese seemed to mind. They were all cool with it. Not sure that I have the patience to be a Chinese guy.